A New Grove

About the Author: C. A. Joseph was a Malayalam poet born in 1910 in Padur near Trissur, Kerala. He died in 1994. A graduate in Economics, he worked in Tamil Nadu and retired as Regional Transport Officer from Cuddalore in 1965. He published sixteen books of poems and six novels. Some of his poems were prescribed as texts at the school and college level. He also contributed to Malayalam and English journals. Joseph translated some of his poems into English, a few of which are collected in this volume. They appeared in various periodicals such as The Illustrated Weekly of India, Thought, Indian Express and Indian Literature between the 1950s and 1980s.

Teaser:

All Life

November came with a blanket of melancholy And a cold wind that beats Quick and sharp Like the tail of a ray-fish

And as I sat brooding All life lay ebbing Between the first girl who timidly waited With reverberations of heart For a windfall of a lover And the second satellite* That tortures the ever virgin space.

All life has been a longing and a questioning: A tussle for squeezing joy and meaning Out of unknown places and unborn time. Here a dog of adventure And there a man of vision perish; Yet life spins on: We hope that our individual cells Will somehow be full and safe Within the whirling honeycomb of life.

* The satellite refers to the space satellite launched around that time.

Contents: The Loudest Colour / 9 A New Cot’s Reverie / 10 Second God / 11 On Drinking from the Cauvery / 13 The Two Signs / 14 An Alien on His Own Soil / 15 On Seeing a Shooting Star / 16 Dancing Girls and the Tamarind Tree / 17 The Worshipper in the Night / 18 The Sun and the Root / 20 School Children / 22 The Fisherman / 23 In a Workshop / 24 The Great Fishing / 25 The Poet’s Work / 26 On Leaving the City / 27 Unending Tears / 28 The End of Research / 29 The Dry Tree / 31 Two Lives / 34 This Clock and Me / 35 Still the Immaculate Love / 36 Prison / 37 The Bat’s Way / 38 Always an Elephant / 39 The Little Bird of the Heavens / 41 Mango Tree in Ooty / 43 The Traveller / 45 All Life / 46